Postal Service is a victim of sabotage

February 13, 2013

So you think the Postal Service is going bad? Well, it isn't going bad; it's being deliberately sabotaged. Can you believe that? It is being deliberately sabotaged by the Republican Party.

Since the Postal Service was reorganized during the Nixon administration and until very recently, it has been totally self-supporting. It has received no government subsidies or bail-outs.

Now, we're hearing of budget shortfalls and cuts in service. This situation is the direct result of a law passed by a lame-duck Republican Congress in 2006, when George Bush was President. This law, complete with the phony label "The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act," requires the Postal Service to completely fund its retirement and health care pension benefits for the next 75 years and to accomplish this feat by the year 2014.

This requirement is ridiculous! No business can do this successfully. No business - public, private, whatever! This requirement is simply a vicious attack on a proud old American institution that is enshrined in the Constitution.

I note a letter to the editor complaining about the postal service to Europe. This man is complaining about a bad experience with the Postal Service. He remarks: "Let private industry do it." Private industry? Well, I've never had a problem with the Postal Service, but I have had two expensive objects crushed by UPS, and I have run into the fact that, in our area, if Fed Ex fails to deliver your package in the morning, you have to drive to Cambridge to pick it up if you want it that same day.

Fed Ex is a big campaign contributor to the Republican Party. You don't suppose that has anything to do with this punitive Republican law, do you? You know, some people think that Republicans are like the members of the world's oldest profession; they'll do anything for money.

Save the United States Postal Service from this unholy law. Let your Congressman know how you feel. I like the Postal Service. I like its hometown nature and the middle class jobs it produces. It's here, where I live; it's not in Cambridge. This push to disable the Postal Service is definitely Republican bias and nastiness at its worst. It is destructive and wasteful. What about all the jobs that will be lost?